Hand in Marriage
by gythia
Summary: Celeborn and Galadriel share a moment after the end of the War of the Ring


Hand in Marriage

Standard disclaimer: this is a fanfic. Characters: don't own 'em. World: don't own that either. Mistakes: oh yeah I own them.

Celeborn stood on the wide talan, looking out at the silver boles of the trees, and the sunlight filtering greenly through the summer leaves. It was still summer, here; but a mortal summer now, that flits by and is gone in a trice. For his people, the autumn had already come.

It was good to be home, after the journey to Gondor for his granddaughter's wedding. But while he and Galadriel had been away, Time had come here. It was inevitable, now that the power of the Three Rings was failing, that the spell that long held all stain from the land of Lorien would fail as well, but Galadriel could perhaps have nursed the last dregs of her strength for some years yet. Instead she had chosen to break the spell herself, by traveling beyond the woods' borders, and thus the most joyous occasion of Arwen's life had become a final defeat for Galadriel.

As Celeborn watched, a leaf fell. One mallorn leaf drifted on a breeze, and passed out of sight below the floor of the talan. He shook his head. "Many times have I seen leaves fall," he told himself softly. "This one is no different, and the spring will come again to this land. To the land, but not to my people."

He was surprised when he felt a touch on his left hand. He had been so caught up in his reverie, he had not noticed Galadriel's silent entrance. He turned his head and smiled at her. Her beauty still was radiant despite the diminution of her power, full of white light and crowned with golden hair, the perfect match to his own ice-white locks, sun-maid and moon-lord.

Then his breath caught. She was standing level with him, facing out at the same scenery, and she was holding his left hand. She had placed her right hand in his—her Ring hand! Never in all the long years in which Nenya had ridden her finger had Galadriel let anyone touch her right hand, not even him.

Celeborn drew their clasped hands up to his awestruck gaze. For him, time had stopped again, as he studied her white hand. He noticed the perfection of her elven skin, the carefully shaped nails, the music inherent in each long, slender finger. He dared to scrutinize the silver flower of Nenya, with its white gem, now visible after so long as the deadliest secret of the realm. Celeborn regarded the metal and stone beauty of the Ring of Adamant, and it left him cold. His wife's hand was the greater jewel. The living presence with her outshone any Ring, however fair or powerful.

He raised her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss across her perfect fingertips. He drew her hand closer and breathed on her glorious fingers, following his breath with his lips, caressing with his lips from the tips of her fingers upwards with his slightly open mouth, slow and patient as the trees.

His lips touched the cool metal of Nenya, in a gesture reminiscent of a mortal's ritual act of fealty. He was conscious, suddenly, of the sweet irony of its opposite meaning here, now, in Lothlorien, between the elven-lord who was nominally accorded the rule of this realm, and his wife who had always surpassed him: in power, in wisdom, in fame, in foresight, in all ways save trust.

The power that was Galadriel was almost a Power, just a note shy of being one of the Powers of the West. For she had walked the sparkling shores of the Undying Lands, and the magic that she wielded partook of the secrets of a Maia's craft, even if made solely by an elven artist who had studied it. To all but a few in Middle-Earth, she was as a goddess. Her husband was among those few who saw her as a person, not an icon, and down through the centuries he had stood by her side, wearing a crown and pretending to be her equal, but she had never before yielded her power to him.

In this gesture, lips to Ring, which in any other context, between any other two people, would have been an act of submission, Celeborn claimed her. He claimed her hand, and her might lay under his mouth.

He looked up into her eyes, inviting her to converse mind to mind as they often did. Her starry blue eyes ceased to blink as she sank into his spirit. She tasted the bittersweet humor of his ironic thought, and behind it, the blessed wine of wonder and the peppery spice of desire.

"After all these centuries as your husband," he mindspoke to her, "finally, you give your hand to me. Finally, you are ready to give all of yourself to me."

"Finally, I relax," she replied, her voice within his mind soft as flower-down on the breeze. "Finally, I can relax my vigilance. I could not endanger my charge for mere self-indulgence. I would have been a most unworthy guardian."

"There was never danger, my beloved. I would not take Nenya from you, nor could I do so simply by holding your hand, unless you willed it."

"I wished to trust, without condition. I wished to give, without reserve. I wished to surrender; I could not. For had I ceased to bend the force of my mind to my task, even for an instant, even in sleep, even in the midst of passion with my soul-mate, even in birth, at any time, for any reason, the boundary of Lorien would crack, and the Enemy would see into me. I could never yield, not even to you; it would have softened me. But that is over now." Her mind seemed to sigh. "I have guarded Nenya and Lorien long enough. Peril is passed; my time is passed."

Celeborn tasted salt, in her thoughts. The salt tang of the Sea.

"Are you leaving?" he asked with a mental gasp.

Galadriel closed her eyes. Abruptly, Celeborn found himself outside again, holding her hand, looking at her face, all surfaces and planes and textures, exquisitely beautiful but startlingly superficial, after the commingling of their spirits.

Aloud, he demanded, "Answer me. Are you leaving Middle-Earth?"

Galadriel responded by stepping close. She folded into him, slipping within his arms, even as her mind sank into his when she used mindspeech. She pressed herself into him, and whispered, "Not today. Hold me, beloved."

Celeborn wrapped her in a fierce hug. Then he took her hand again, and pulled her by the hand toward their screened private chamber.

Not today, she had said. So she was leaving. He had always known she would eventually go home, back to Elvenhome. All elves sailed West in time. He too would go someday. But this moment was not that day. This moment was to be savored. So Galadriel wished to surrender? Today she would get her wish.

The End


End file.
